The present invention relates generally to wheat production, and more specifically to a particular variety of hard white winter wheat designated G1323.
Wheat is an important crop as a food staple and nutritional agent, and has been cultivated since the times of ancient Egypt and Syria. Along with rice and corn, it accounts for about 75% of worldwide cereal production. In 1978, the United States produced 46% of the wheat in the global market.
Most white flour is milled from a mixture of different wheats. The proportion of each kind will typically depend upon a variety of factors, particularly the amount and proportion of protein contained therein. During the milling process, the endosperm portion of the wheat kernels is separated from the bran layers through a series of breaking and screening steps. While the resulting bran is commonly relegated to breakfast cereals or animal feeds, the endosperm fraction is ground to separate flour from the coarser endosperm particles. Finally, the flour is treated with bleaching and aging agents, enriched with vitamins, and packaged for both domestic and commercial end-users. While white flour intended for baking needs in domestic settings typically contains about 10.5% protein, commercial bakers generally desire a flour having a protein level around 11.5%, so that in the dough stage, it will withstand mechanical agitation imposed by commercial mixers.
Gluten is a complex of two primary endosperm proteins: gliadin and glutenin. Once the flour is moistened with water to make dough, these endosperm proteins will cooperate to form a complex throughout the mass. The elasticity of this protein complex permits the encapsulation of the carbon dioxide gas bubbles produced by the yeast or other levening agents added to the dough mixture.
Flour best suited for bread making contains proteins that form a gluten complex that will retain the shape of the bread not only during baking, but also after the bread cools. Moreover, bread bakers will generally desire a flour having a relatively high protein level to cause the bread to rise properly. On the other hand, bakers of cookies, cakes, and pastries will generally want a flour having a lower protein level and corresponding gluten strength, so that their products will not rise as much.
In order to fulfill these demands, flour millers are faced with a variety of wheats that are grown in different parts of the United States, depending upon soil and climate characteristics, and which provide different protein levels and properties. For example, soft red winter wheats are typically grown in Ohio, Indiana, and areas of the Southeastern U.S. Meanwhile, soft white wheats are generally grown in the Pacific Northwest and Michigan. Various analytical methods are available for measuring the "softness" or "hardness" of wheat kernels, and classifying the wheat varieties accordingly. Soft wheats typically have lower protein levels and protein characteristics that suit them more for cake and pastry baking than for bread baking.
"Hard" wheat varieties are characterized by the vitreous nature of their kernels. While there are instances of soft wheats that have protein levels higher than those of hard wheats (e.g., a soft red wheat variety developed by Goertzen Seed Research of Haven, Kans., and designated GRS2500 contains more protein than KARL, a hard wheat variety planted over a significant area of Western Kansas, and has actually been visually graded by federal inspectors as "hard"), the latter will generally have higher protein levels and gluten strength properties that are better suited for bread baking. Therefore, commercial bread bakers are generally biased in favor of flours made primarily from hard wheat varieties, and these varieties are demanded by flour millers accordingly. By controlling the amount of protein and quality of protein of the wheat that is blended into their flour, the bakers can regulate the size, shape, and consistency of their yeast-raised bread.
Hard red winter wheats are primarily grown in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, and will have a red color in the intact wheat kernel and its outer layers. Hard red spring wheat is chiefly planted in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana. Both of these types of wheat varieties are widely used in flours for yeast-levened breads, and therefore comprise a substantial portion of all wheat used in flour.
However, in addition to their desirable protein and gluten properties, hard red wheats are characterized by a relatively strong wheat flavor that consumers may not want for whole wheat bread products. Moreover, the distinct red hue of whole wheat flour milled from hard red wheat varieties may be problematic for bread products like whole wheat croissants and Danish rolls that consumers typically associate with a white hue. Furthermore, bran separated from hard red wheat varieties is generally only suitable for animal feeds, and therefore is less valuable to the miller than brans derived from white wheat varieties that may be used in breakfast cereals and other bran products consumed by humans.
While white wheat varieties would fill these niches by producing a white whole wheat bread with a milder flavor, the fact remains that most white wheats are soft, with lower protein levels and lower gluten strength that are difficult to sell to millers for bread baking flour. Moreover, few hard white winter wheat varieties are adapted to hard red wheat areas of the U.S. (i.e., Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Texas, North and South Dakota, and Montana). Hard white winter wheat has only recently become a market class. The susceptibility of white wheat varieties to sprout in the head if wet conditions prevail during harvest time has also been a factor. If wheat sprouts in the head, it results in physical changes that lessen the bread making value of the wheat due to the development of atypical cell structure and slack dough, which causes the dough to run into the corners of a pan, instead of making slightly rounded corners of the loaf, and instead gives the part of the loaf that comes into contact with the pan a slick appearance.
Therefore, it would be useful to produce a variety of white wheat that is: (1) hard with higher protein levels and gluten strengths; (2) may be grown in the winter; (3) does not sprout in the head during damp conditions; and (4) has functional properties of protein that are good enough, and protein levels that are high enough to make good whole wheat bread products that lack the strong flavor of whole wheat products made from red wheats. Such a hard white wheat variety could be milled to higher flour extractions without creating objectionable color in the resulting flour, and the bran separated from the grain thereof could be readily marketed for breakfast cereals, instead of lower quality red wheat bran which must be marketed as lower priced livestock feed.
One way to produce such an altered wheat variety is through the application of plant breeding to existing white wheat varieties. By combining in a single variety various desirable traits like resistance to diseases and insects, tolerance to heat, drought, and cold spells, resistance to sprouting in the head, reducing the time to crop maturity, increasing plant yield, and improved agronomic quality, undesirable traits may be minimized, as well.
Wheat crops are bred by taking advantage of the plant's method of pollination. Ordinarily, the glumes enclosing the wheat blossom will prevent the pollen that originates from the anthers (male portion) of one plant from impregnating the ovule (female portion) of another nearby plant, such as when the wind blows. Thus, the pollen of a wheat plant will generally only impregnate the ovule of the same plant. This is called "self-pollination" and maintains the homozygous nature of the variety. The seed may also be replanted in a subsequent year to grow new wheat plants representative of that particular line.
A plant is cross-pollinated, however, if pollen on one plant is transferred to the flower of another plant to produce a uniform population of hybrid plants that may be heterozygous at many gene locations. The development of wheat hybrids requires the development of homozygous varieties, the crossing of these varieties, and the evaluation of the crosses. For example, two genotypes (i.e., varieties), each of which may have one or more desirable characteristics that is lacking in the other, or which compliment the other are first cross-pollinated to produce a hybrid progeny commonly designated F.sub.1.
Next the superior F.sub.1 plants are planted and self-pollinated to produce an F.sub.2 group of plants. These plants are bulked and carried as a population. The F.sub.3 generation may also be bulked, and carried as a population segregating into great diversity. Selections are often started in the F.sub.4 generation and subsequent generations until a superior variety exhibiting the desired traits and none or few undesirable traits is obtained. This selection when uniform in appearance may then be self-pollinated through subsequent planting seasons to obtain an adequate amount of seed for commercial purposes.